Road Safety

Yesterday on the way back from taking our Huge Dalmatian for a walk, Daughter & I stopped off at the local Coop shop to pick up the paper. There’s always a parking problem here, with drivers ignoring the double yellow lines along Huddleston Street, so as to minimise their walking to the shop. Anyway, the...
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This image comes from the Crap Cycling & Walking in Waltham Forest blog, and is pretty astonishing. Looking at the white zig-zags on the road, it’s near to a pedestrian crossing, but what’s it for? If you were riding on the road, you’d have to give way to pedestrians, though by the time you...
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What’s the correct thing to do when a driver’s lack of care puts you in their sights? It’s hard to tell if it was out-and-out bullying, or just a crap driver with no appreciation of the fact that bikes do move faster than a walking pace. This was on my way home from Newcastle this...
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So there’s this case of Daniel Rosier that went to court in Oxford last week. He cycled past a line of cars at a pedestrian crossing, but didn’t stop, and hit a pedestrian. THEN he stopped, and helped the child he’d hit, and looked after them ’till the boy’s parents arrived. Anyway, he broke the law,...
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I had to nip into Whitley Bay at lunchtime today to get a new strap for my watch. The old one had come unglued (for the second time), and the watch had fallen off my wrist and into the road a few days ago. Miraculously, it was undamaged! Anyway, while I was in the jewellers,...
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As I said before, today was a trip up to Ashington to visit a prospective new client. I rode Siegfried, and it took about 65 minutes each way - that’s about 30 minutes more than the driving time. But if I’d driven, I would have followed some dull-as-dishwater route along boring motorway-grade roads, and arrived...
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Today was a ride up the coast to visit a prospective new client in Ashington. About 15 miles each way, and in the past I’d have driven this, to arrive looking smart & business-like. But now that I’ve got Siegfried - an Eminently Sensible Sturdy Commuting Bike (ESSCB), I can ride that kind of...
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So today was my first real trip on Siegfried - into Newcastle, then out to Walker and home. Somewhere around a 20 mile round trip. And I was presenting a workshop in the afternoon, so I had my laptop, projector, lunch, and a set of waterproofs with me (the weather forecast was for RAIN...
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So I’m almost cycling in ordinary clothes now. The exception is my footwear: Yes, these are industrial-grade safety shoes. Because, after all, cycling is dangerous, isn’t it? Actually, the reason I’m wearing this is that they’re my work shoes - I visit all sorts of factories, where you really do have to wear shoes with...
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You may have gathered that I got a new bike. It’s a Pashley Roadster Sovereign. That’s not a photo of my actual bike, but one just like it. I’m waiting for a decent sunrise over the sea to take my own photos and scoop the EcoVelo photograph prize. After much agonising, I’ve gone with my first...
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